Top Ten StarCraft II Pro Moments

Share.

To quote the Sandlot, "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die."

By Alex Conn

On July 27th, 2011 StarCraft II celebrated its first birthday; man oh man, how the time has flown.

In the year since release, StarCraft II exploded in popularity all over the globe, becoming the world's premier eSport. There are now five major StarCraft II leagues, all of which boast breath-taking prize pools. Professional players stream to a fan base that is willing to eat up StarCraft II content twenty-four hours a day. We have seen old legends struggle to succeed in a new game. The community has seen rivalries form. These stories aren't few and far between; they're uncountable and they happen incredibly frequently.

IGN eSports tried our best to boil down our favorite Starcraft II storylines from the last year to a neat and tidy list of ten. It was no easy feat, as everyone had different moments that held soft spots in their hearts, but after many heated arguments and ruined friendships we managed to get ten that we felt good about.

Here's to one year down and many more to come.

10. PuMa: From Zero to Hero

When it launched, the North American Star League boasted a whopping $100,000 prize pool. The first season took place between April 2011 and June 2011 and featured fifty of the best StarCraft players in the world.

After the nine week regular season, the top fifteen players were seeded into a sixteen person final bracket; the sixteenth player was pulled from an open bracket tournament which was primarily being used to determine participants for the second season.

The winner of the NASL Open Tournament was a relatively unknown player Lee 'PuMa' Ho Joon. Fans had never seen him in a tournament of this magnitude, and many were skeptical of how he would perform. Boy, did he prove his merit.

PuMa defeated Ret, who went 8-1 in the regular season, in twenty minutes in the round of sixteen. PuMa defeated Squirtle after a close series in the round of eight. PuMa defeated StarCraft: Brood War legend JulyZerg in the round of four. PuMa then defeated oGsMC, in what may have been the most exciting Starcraft II series to date, to win the first season of the North American Star League.

PuMa played two weekends worth of matches, when most players played the full three month long season, and pocketed $50,000 for his efforts. He went from being someone under the radar of nearly all fans to being considered one of the best players in the world in the blink of an eye.

9. Foreigner Success in GSL

Korean Brood War players were better than their non-Korean counterparts ninety-nine times out of one hundred. In the game's history there were only ever a handful of foreigners that could compete with professional Korean players, and even then there was only one occasion where a foreigner (the jargon for non-Korean) won a large Korean event.

Starcraft II represented a new opportunity for StarCraft players in the western world. Though RTS mechanics learned from Brood War would still be applicable, StarCraft II was still a new game. Now dedicated foreigners had a chance to stake their claim amongst the dominant Koreans.

And they did.

A few foreigners have taken up the charge, and have been able to compete with the Korean players on their home turf in the Global Star League. Jonathan 'Jinro' Walsh made it to the round of four in two consecutive GSL Code-S seasons. Chris 'HuK' Loranger, Dario 'TLO' Wunsch, and Greg 'IdrA' Fields have all also seen different degrees of success in the primarily Korean tournament.

It just goes to show that with the discipline and the right conditions anyone can compete at the highest levels.

8. eSports as a Profession

Countless players, casters, team managers, tournament organizers, and journalists are now making their living from StarCraft II. While it wasn't unheard of for gamers making ends meet from competitive gaming in the past, StarCraft II has definitely taken the notion of a "career in gaming" to a whole new level.

Personalities like Sean 'Day[9]' Plott and Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham are often booked as casters months in advance for big events. Players like Steven 'Destiny' Bonnell II and Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson can make over four thousand dollars a month streaming in addition to whatever salaries they make as from their teams.

7. Still Gosu Over the Hill

In Brood War, you were as good as washed up by the time you hit your mid-twenties – that has not been the case with StarCraft II. StarCraft II has renewed the careers of many older gamers.

Korean pro Lim 'NesTea' Jae Duk is over thirty and is regarded by many as the best StarCraft II player in the world. He's the only player to have won three Global Star League championships, and it's entirely possible that he'll win a few more.

The Ukrainian Protoss White-ra is another example of an "over the hill" gamer that has seen success in StarCraft II. At thirty-two White-ra had mixed feelings about continuing his career as a professional StarCraft II player. He had a family he needed to think about it, and he was considering settling down with a more traditional job. During what he thought would be his last few tournaments he managed to take first place over and over again; the thousands of dollars in prize money he pocketed persuaded him to keep playing.